


Secret Admirer Chronicle in Pandemic Times

by fuschia_romance



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuschia_romance/pseuds/fuschia_romance
Summary: The short chronicle of Jeon Wonwoo's secret admirer. It's hard to admire an introvert from afar, especially when admiration has to move online due to a pandemic.(or a random story where Zoom is the leading role)
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60





	Secret Admirer Chronicle in Pandemic Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is my unrequited love for Jeon Wonwoo, told from another person's perspective because this is my birthday week. Of course, why not? Happy my birthday, everyone.

This is the story of a boy meets boy - or at least how he retells to me.

You should know upfront; this is not a love story.

It will be challenging to start this short writing without introducing that one boy. Well, you can call him Connor. 

It might or might not be his real name. Why? To ease the storytelling and because Connor is such a white name. 

Connor clearly remembers the first time he saw him as if it happened only a few days ago. While in fact, it happened last year during the first week of school. 

His first week of adjusting to Graduate school was full of remembering the building's location, lecturers' names, available resources, and looking bothered to memorise many people's names and faces - while he put the minimum effort in it. He's never good at remembering people's names and faces. Now, throw him into Graduate school's orientation week, with tonnes of people and a bunch of international students' names with difficult pronunciation. 

Save to say that he fakes the efforts of remembering, while inside, he knew he would forget all of those in half an hour. 

Human has limited brain capacity, and he's here to study and get that advanced degree to get a better job; he has spent most of his undergraduate years partying, drinking, and having fun. 

Guess now; it's time to be professional and think about his career path. 

Well, at least until he saw that unforgettable face.

***

Honestly, never before he fancies an Asian - or specifically, an Asian boy. 

Not that he's racist or homophobic, mind you, he's openly bisexual, and his close friends knew the fact. 

Come to think of it, he never really has an Asian in his close friend circle. Life just happened like that, he guesses.

So, when this attractive guy walks into the classroom for one of the foundation classes, with his floppy soft hair, soft looking skin, round spectacle, stunning eyes, and sweater paws. He has to take a moment to ensure he's looking at a real human being. 

Did he mention it was quite hot and humid back then? But, who cares, he's okay to see Jeon Wonwoo with sweater paws any time of the year. 

It just amazes him how someone can look ridiculously pretty and handsome at the same time. He might also be not the only person who was instantly smitten with Wonwoo with the number of people requesting him to repeat his name during the introduction. His eyes will strays to Wonwoo during classes. 

Yet, you can't have it all. Wonwoo is awfully quiet. 

It doesn't take a genius to come to this conclusion, and he's lucky to share three classes with Wonwoo during their first semester. So, he has a fair share of Wonwoo weekly. 

Suppose the Professors did not explicitly mention that they will grade participation strictly, so they prefer students to voice their opinions now and then. He is pretty sure Wonwoo is completely fine to stay silent throughout the class. Not that he doesn't have a great idea on stuff, he has a quite insightful observation (when he chooses to speak); Wonwoo just prefers listening rather than talking. 

The lack of Wonwoo's participation isn't good because the world needs more of that fantastic deep voice. He's quite lucky, he guesses, for he ended up in Wonwoo's group (and several other less important people) for a project in their second semester. It was the only class he got with Wonwoo during the second semester, but he's not complaining. 

Until lockdown happened that is, and his Wonwoo's daily dose has to reduce drastically. They even have to do the presentation online, and all that intense preparation for the final presentation has turned into intense zoom preparations. 

Imagine! He could have spent hours and hours admiring the pretty boy from a close distance, yet he has to suffer from Wonwoo's cuteness via zoom. 

It's somehow better with the fact that Wonwoo participating in class from home looks different. Rather than the default intense gaze towards the board or the lecturer he usually wears, he can now see Wonwoo in his natural habitat, looking super soft, sometimes with tousled hair sitting in his kitchen and sleepily drinking a cup of coffee. 

Ah, the other joy of using zoom. You can pin your crush page and watch his face for several hours a week without no one knowing. 

Also, he learns several new things about Wonwoo over zoom.

Things that are tough to dig in real life because of how quiet and introverted Wonwoo is. Before lockdown (how many decades ago was it?), despite people talking and sharing little stuff about themselves, Wonwoo will mostly stay quiet. 

Most people know him as the reserved Korean guy or that cute Asian guy. His only attributes being: tall, Korean/Asian, and quiet. No one knows anything else about him. Does he play musical instruments? What is his favorite TV show? What is his plan after school? What did he do before grad school?

Not that people lack interest in him, it's just hard to start the conversation with him. If you can make him talk in the first place, he hardly attends a gathering or hangs out with fellow students. So, Connor will do everyone a favor and share his list.

**_ Wonwoo has a cat pet _ . **

Imagine what a pleasant surprise it was for Connor when he started his zoom call one morning to find sleepy Wonwoo sitting on a couch with a fluffy grey cat. There is a high possibility of him capturing the screen several times throughout the class. Well, don't blame him. Welcome to the crush culture in the advanced age of zoom.

So, he has a cat as a pet, and it seems that Wonwoo is very weak for his cat. He keeps rubbing and petting the cat. At one time, even the lecturer called on him to ask the cat's name, followed by several other people bringing their pets into the frame in a "Rafiki-lifted-Simba" style. What an awesome sight to see when the boxes signifying attendants were filled with cats, puppies, and a parakeet instead. A very embarrassed Wonwoo answered that the name is Lulu, and he slowly puts Lulu off the camera - to the biggest disappointment of several people. 

Some of their female classmates even proposed a virtual happy hour with pets after that, something that Connor highly suspects to lure Wonwoo to attend. Yet, Wonwoo never attended.

**_ Wonwoo lives in a house.  _ **

Due to Wonwoo's politeness towards the lecturer and his dedication to turning on the camera during zoom classes, it is relatively easy to study his surroundings. 

At first, it was hard to deduce whether he lives in a house or apartment since he was exclusively calling from the kitchen. You never know whether the exclusive corner that Wonwoo shows is from a big spacious kitchen or a small one. 

Yet, twice during their second semester (after the transition from offline to online life), Connor saw Wonwoo called from another room, which looks like a study room. Someone asked where he was in the chat box before the class start, to which he quickly said the kitchen is occupied at the moment. 

**_ Wonwoo lives with a housemate. _ **

This conclusion will come to those who are attentive enough. Once, Connor saw a person moves quickly to cross the kitchen behind Wonwoo. Although the face was cut from the frame, it is safe to assume he lives with another male due to the outfit and built. 

He also saw a hand put a bowl of grapes near Wonwoo, followed by Wonwoo talking to someone off-camera (on mute, sadly Wonwoo never forgets to mute himself). He was laughing while scrunching his nose. 

Jeon Wonwoo laughs and scrunches his nose when he is pleased. He might as well die in peace, knowing this. 

**_ Wonwoo's favorite food is hamburger. _ **

His roommate is a guy who loves to cook for Wonwoo, and his favorite food is hamburger. 

During the last week of the semester, they have to finalise the group presentation and short paper. Easier said than done when you have to put together five people's thoughts for slides and paper, and the only method to do that is zoom call. (Where's the sword fighting when you need it?) The call was originally scheduled to last 1,5 hours. Yet, it's been more than 2 hours with two of their teammates still bicker over the conclusion, and somehow, they argue again over the actor mapping over the conflict - which was the first part of the slides—the joy of studying international relations.

Wonwoo's face is very gloom now. He tried to redirect the discussion back to the conclusion without success. It's past 7.30 now, and Connor's pretty sure ordinary people, him included, are hungry. That's when it happened. 

The door to Wonwoo's study room suddenly opened, and Wonwoo possibly forgets that he has unmuted his mic in case he wanted to jump into the ongoing debate. 

"Wonwoo-yah, do you want to eat now?"

"Not yet, Mingyu." 

"I made your favourite hamburger," the housemate named Mingyu said in a sing-song tone.

Wonwoo looks over his shoulder at Mingyu, whose hand is still at the door handle. 

"Why are you pouting?" Mingyu gave a quick look at the screen, and he said, "Are you still on the group call? Didn't you say it will end at 7?" 

"I know," Wonwoo whined. "I also thought so, and I'm hungry now,"

WAIT. WHAT. 

_Jeon Wonwoo just whined._

Connor's brain is probably fried now. 

Wonwoo quickly speaks in Korean after that, and after a brief talk, Mingyu left the room. Wonwoo looks back at the screen and possibly wanted to unmute to talk and found that he has been unmuted all along. 

Amazingly, despite that rare occurrence of Jeon Wonwoo whines and all, Caitlyn and Brian are still in the same argument. 

"Guys," Wonwoo interrupted, "If we can't finalise the slide now, I suggest we have another call tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, everyone should review the actor mapping once more and goes back to the conclusion. Don't forget we still have the paper to submit, and we have not distributed the slides for each speaker,"

"No," Caitlyn insists, "We can finish the slides tonight,"

"I can't," Wonwoo cut in, uncharacteristically forceful. 

"I have to side with Wonwoo on this one. It's already so late and I haven't cook, y'all," I jumped in.

"Me too," Amy backed the two of us, bless her soul, "You and Dustin probably can continue with the discussion and tell us what conclusion you arrive at tonight over email, rather than keeping all of us hostage here. The three of us already shared our thoughts."

So, that's the first time Connor saw Mingyu - the housemate. It won't be the last time. 

**_ Mingyu is already... taken? _ **

For several weeks after that, there was nothing eventful happening. Mainly because it was the break between the semester, so Connor was always in a Wonwoo's deprived condition. Never before in his life has he been looking forward to school as much as now. 

Funnily enough, their school kind of forced the students for several pre-classes sessions via zoom. Justifying that their meaningful interaction has been cut down due to the pandemic, the school thinks it's a good idea for continuing students to meet new students or hang out as a cohort via several zoom sessions. 

If it's under normal circumstances, he will never attend any of these sessions. However, considering this semester will be their third semester and the start of their last year as a grad student, plus, there's a good chance for him to catch a glimpse of Wonwoo, so why not? 

During one of the online mixers with the incoming students, the facilitators split the group into several breakout groups to encourage free and organic discussion. Such a thing will always be super awkward in real life, and now via zoom, there is just no way something organic will happen. 

Luckily, he got assigned to the same breakout room with Wonwoo, though. Unfortunately, one of the incoming students in their group is super chatty, dominating the group discussion, and quite possibly a little bit too bold. 

Wonwoo has his turn to introduce himself and talk a bit about his experience as a student so far when Mingyu, his housemate, suddenly walks into the frame. 

He is looking like a model, all sweaty and out-of-breath from a workout. 

He was not cut from the frame this time. Everyone has a clear view of that man, strolls into the kitchen, saying a breathy, "Hey, Wonnie," replied with an embarrassed wheeze from Wonwoo.

Mingyu, oblivious to the fact that Wonwoo is in a zoom session, opens the fridge, grabs a cold water bottle, and proceeds to take a big gulp out of it. All the while looking like a sports drink commercial.

Wonwoo's eyes widen for several seconds, and Connor can see how he's trying to continue his sentences and act as if nothing is going on behind his back until... 

Mingyu decided to take off his sweaty shirt in the middle of the kitchen - and for everyone in the zoom breakout room to see (and enjoy). 

Connor's not going to lie; he might contribute to the chorus of gasps echoing afterward. (Because he always forgot to mute)

"Kim Mingyu!!" Wonwoo shrieked, "I'm on a zoom call!!" He proceeded to move the screen somewhere else, but as comedic as it is, an embarrassed Mingyu run towards that way. So yeah, viewers got another glimpse of a very sexy back. 

"Sorry to your classmates!" Mingyu yell as he runs away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he usually will not walk in here. It's a new semester, he's still not used to my schedule, and this is not even in the schedule I put at the fridge, so he didn't know... Oh my God, I'm sorry," Wonwoo babbles while some of the folks laugh loudly and say it's an excellent intermezzo.

If Connor was previously curious about how red Wonwoo can get if he's flustered, now he can picture it. 

Wonwoo flails and fans himself is a charming view, which is a stark difference from the almost strip show they had several minutes ago. 

"Wow, your roommate is sure handsome," a new student said, "I wouldn't mind climbing that man. Can you give me his number?"

The emotional transition on Wonwoo's face is happening so quickly. From a cute embarrassed kitten, he now looks like a dark winter night. 

"I wouldn't bother if I were you, he's already taken," 

Just like that, Wonwoo breeze through his forgotten introduction, muted himself and turned off his camera for the rest of the session.

**_Okay, fine. *deep sigh* Wonwoo has a boyfriend._ **

And Mingyu is Wonwoo's boyfriend. 

As a creepy secret admirer, Connor is finally ready to face the music. It happened several weeks into the third semester. 

Wonwoo and Connor signed up for the same class again. Although it's only one class, he will argue that it's such a substantial amount of time every week because the course lasted for almost 3 hours in one sitting.  __

Hence, the professor has kindly given them a generous 20-minutes break each time. 

He also has to admit; this is one of the best online classes he has so far. The professor tries so hard to have a genuine and effective conversation over zoom. To top it off, during the break, she will play songs over the speaker and encourage people to turn off the camera and dance or do a little exercise. She also has a separate discussion board, where people can submit songs that they would like to hear during the break, which ranges from the '70s, 80's, and more recent pieces. From this discussion board, Connor also saw several of Wonwoo's submission (a singer named IU and Jonas Brothers). 

When the selected songs for the days are over, it signifies that break is over, and people should come back in front of their screen. 

They're in their fifth class that day. Everyone enjoys the dance break, and sometimes people will still turn on their camera and move a little while getting their snacks or food. Most of the time, his classmates' kids or babies will also be in the frame and dance or nodding their heads to the music's beat. 

Their class starts as usual. Probably the only uncommon thing to happen was Wonwoo asking two questions already before the break. Considering how quiet he usually is, that was remarkable. 

Then, a series of comedic events happened that lead to Connor's realization that _Mingyu is indeed Wonwoo's boyfriend_. 

Their professor announces for the usual dance/music break. Connor moves to get his salad and decided to sit in front of his computer with the camera off. He thinks many people spent the class-break sitting in front of their computer anyway, just turning their camera and mic off.

Then, as usual his eyes strays to Wonwoo's view. Who is he kidding anyway, he pinned Wonwoo's page as his computer's main view. He then noticed that Wonwoo has forgotten to unmute his laptop, but the camera is off anyway, so he thinks it doesn't matter. 

He nods his head to the beat of several ABBA's songs when it's at the end, the camera to Wonwoo is turned on to show Lulu the cat peering to the camera.

What a smart cat. Did Lulu accidentally turn on the camera?  She probably is confused as to what is this thing that Wonwoo is looking at and giving his attention to most of the time. 

Well, the gray cat is super cute, so not that he minds the view. Plus, Wonwoo is in the background, possibly preparing himself snacks on the kitchen's counter. 

That is until "Intentions" from Justin Bieber suddenly plays, and a wild dancing Mingyu came into the frame. 

Connor raised one of his eyebrows at how close Mingyu sways to Wonwoo, their giggle can be heard over the song and Lulu's soft meow.

Considering Wonwoo's personality, he's under the assumption that both of them are unaware that the mic and camera are on, because suddenly Mingyu is hugging Wonwoo while bringing the other boy to sway to the rhythm. 

"What are you doing?" he can hear Wonwoo asked in tiny, while Mingyu is singing that part of how perfect and gorgeous Wonwoo is while moving his hand up and down motioning Wonwoo's body. (And boy has a pleasant voice too) 

His jaw dropped to the floor when Wonwoo joins in the rap part, all the while these two are still swaying in each other embraces. Mingyu gave a mock surprised face at Wonwoo's rap, which alludes to the fact that Wonwoo possibly raps a lot of time in their house. 

As if it's not enough, as the song near its end - Mingyu suddenly cups Wonwoo's face and kisses him squarely on the lips. 

Holy cow, he is pretty sure his jaw is totally dislocated now. _Mingyu is taken._

_Taken by Jeon Wonwoo._ They are boyfriends! How dumb is he to take so long to realise? 

"Stop, I'm still in class," Wonwoo whined again. He then moves to free himself from Mingyu's embrace, and as he walks back to his chair, the other song that is playing (What am I by Why don't we) gets lower, and the professor's voice can be heard.

"As cute as the view has been, I hope you realise that your camera is on, Wonwoo," she steadily said. 

Then they got a full 2 minutes of flailing, embarrassed and very red Wonwoo, who keeps apologising and saying he didn't realise his camera is on. Thinking it might help the very red boy, Connor jumped in and said that Lulu paws the camera on, so it's not his fault. Come to think of it, he just blew his cover and admitting he was watching the event unfold since Lulu paws his computer. Wow, how classy of him.

_Anyway...._

***

So, that's the end of his short and tragic chronicle on admiring a person over zoom. Was he sad? Definitely. He probably was not in love with Wonwoo, but it was a huge giant crush for sure. 

Yet, looking at how handsome his boyfriend is. 

Who can argue that Jeon Wonwoo looks good together with Kim Mingyu?

Besides, after moving on from his unrequited crush several weeks after, he finally can speak to Wonwoo normally and possibly become his friend. 

**Author's Note:**

> Intentions by Justin Bieber is in Woozi's Spotify playlist


End file.
